Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

That is a fairly standard answer and is fairly non-illuminating. Preparations are being made for the budget and already very harsh measures have been imposed on low and middle income earners among whom there is growing poverty. There is also the growing phenomenon of the working poor and huge numbers of people at the low and middle end have no incentive to work. What incentive do low and middle income workers have to work at present? Their take-home pay has been hammered. They will be hammered with increasing water charges, property taxes and bills. Faced with this and as demonstrated in the response to the written parliamentary question I tabled, if we had a series of bands of taxation to be imposed on earnings of more than €100,000 it could yield €922 million. Imagine the relief that could give to low and middle income earners and the investment we could make in social housing. Why will the Minister not consider it given the very cruel choices he may have to make in the budget?

See this speech in context